Eldritch and Cantankerous

Buy a mirror for the offered price and write on it S. Solam, S. Tattler, S. Echogarter Gemator. Dig a hole at a crossroads, at an odd-numbered hour, and take it out. Do not look into it at first, but let a dog or cat look into it.

It’s unstated, but apparently something bad happens to the dog or cat. As such, it is not approved by my fiancee, so use at your own risk.

It’s a rough translation, and I think quite a bit has been omitted. It’s likely one is supposed to bury the mirror at a crossroads for a particular period of time (three days? seven days?) and then dig it up.

Maybe the idea is that if nothing bad happens to the dog or cat, then you’re clear to give it a try yourself. Whereas if they drop dead, or a scaly arm emerges and drags them into the mirror, you should probably throw rocks at it from a distance and then bury the fragments.

One gives an animal to look into it first so that they will get the ‘zap’ that may accompany a spirit-charged mirror — in other words, they are to act like medieval royal food tasters.

Since animals are expendable in the point of view of so many folks, their loss would count for nothing, and then the magician or witch could safely look into the glass once the initial curse was out of the way.

This is definitely NOT something to try with one’s pets. At the very least they could get a good fright, at the worst violently ill, possessed, or dead.

It sort of reminds me of the old folk-method for uprooting mandrake. Mandrakes were supposed to shriek when uprooted, killing those within earshot. Therefore a dog would be employed for the uprooting (using a rope tied to the plant). The dog would then pull out the root once the owner was at a safe distance.